Doodles
by vts
Summary: Before the Dragon Campaign, there were no Dragoons. Who was the one who made them? And what relation do they have to Frahma? Rated PG13 for violence and language. [it's dead, folks.]
1. Introduction: Of Green Eyes

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Doodles 

Introduction: Of Green Eyes
    
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    O_O MY FIRST DISCLAIMER! Oh, happy day...*sniffle* Anyway, I do not own Legend of Dragoon or any of the characters in it. Cassandra, Saiu, and other original characters in this story are my own creations, however. The lyrics right below this are from the song "The World" from the anime .hack//SIGN. I love that show...^_^ Anyway, I'll be uploading this at about two chapters a time for the first one, and I'm not sure after that. I'm writing this before I sign up for FF.net, because I can't sign up yet, and I just want to write something right now. It's my first serious fic, so it's probably going to be very screwed up. Anyway, reviews are welcome, and flames are welcomed as well. I want to try to make this at least a semi-decent story. X_x Thanks! -A.S.
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The fields are filled with desires

All voices crying for freedom

But all in vain they will fade away

There's only you to answer you, forever

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Before the Dragon Campaign, the Winglies ruled over all. Humans, Minintos, Gigantos, Dragons... nothing matched the great intelligence and strength of the Winglies' rule, led by Melbu Frahma and Magician Faust. Eventually, the Dragoons, warriors fueled by insanity and the powerful spirits of deceased Dragons, rose up over Frahma and Faust and freed the enslaved races. The continent of Endiness broke up into four countries: Serdia, Tiberoa, Mille Seseau, and the Death Frontier. However, Frahma proved to be alive, and fused with the Virage Embryo, the God of Destruction, to destroy the world that he couldn't have. Dart, the Divine Dragoon, defeated him, and rid the world of his existence for what looks like forever, along with the help of the new Dragoons.

Then again, everybody knew that, didn't they?

Now for another supposedly pointless fact: the Winglies all had silver hair and eye colors ranging from amber to copper to scarlet. They could fly, they had extensive magical powers, and they had their own servants known as the Virage. All of their powers varied, some being more magical-oriented and adept than others, but they all basically had the same abilities.

One of the most powerful Winglies, if not the most powerful, was Melbu Frahma, as stated earlier. A physical trait that differed about him, other than his distortion from too much magic, was that he had green eyes, not like the other Winglies. Could it be, then, that he was different not only in power, but in birthright as well? What was the factor that made him have that one difference from the rest?

It could very well have happened from addiction to a God's life strength; perhaps it _was _the answer to the distortion of his body. After all, a Wingly doesn't look like that naturally, do they?

And now, for another question: Who came up with the idea for the Dragoons? We know that they defeated Frahma, and that Emperor Diaz gathered them - but surely, Diaz wasn't the one who _created_ them, as well. Also, who was the one who made the paintings of the Dragoons in battle, as if said person was right there watching? Who could have such an imagination, for humans with wings and powers made from the living souls of Dragons?

The one who created the doodles, as well as the idea for the Dragoons, was a Wingly girl with green eyes. 

Is there a connection between the dictator and the artist? Perhaps so, perhaps not. This is only one of many possibilities that may have happened for the creation of the Dragoons. To fully understand what happened, how it happened, and why it happened, we would have to go back in time from the defeat of the Virage Embryo, and we would have to go back even before the times of Diaz, Rose, and Zieg.

Welcome to the pre-Dragoon era.

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Whoo! I'm glad that I edited this. XD I may have a few chapters up along with this (I made this before my 13th birthday...meh. O.o), but maybe not(due to my incurable laziness). I WILL try to finish this. I've been having this idea for so long, and it'll feel really good to get this out of the way. 

So...comments? Critiques? Flames? Please review!


	2. Of Subconscious Screams

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Doodles

Of Subconscious Screams

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Swallowed up in the sound of my screaming  
Cannot cease for the fear of silent nights  
Oh, how I long for the deep sleep dreaming  
The goddess of imaginary light  
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It was evening on Thursday the 19th in the Month of Blooming - March, in our current calendar. The human town of Omaru, now known as Neet, was a town made up of mostly wooden houses of only one floor and three rooms each - possibly more, possibly less. Most houses supported more than one family, but some could hold only one while others could hold about five. Apart from the normal resident's homes were only few buildings - there was one small church where most of the town's religious folk went to worship, and although renovated numerous times, it would be the same one that was destroyed by the Black Monster at a much later date. There was a market also made of stone, which had a crude black lamp hanging off the wall. It was a tiny town, with a small population and an even smaller business rate. However, it was one of the few places to go where people would be safe from the wrath of the Winglies. It was almost always hustling with both shouts and whispers among the small chatter. Come to think of it, if one were just visiting the village, they would think of it as a pretty noisy place.

However, on this night of March, the town was silent. There was no hustle except for one person walking to their house, and no noise apart from the occasional yell of a mother prompting their child in from the cold. If one were still enough, they would hear the crackle of a small fireplace, as the poor residents attempted to warm themselves from the unusual cold.

There was one house - correction, make that a shack - in which there was movement. In the dim light of candles on a desk that seemed not to suit the poor environment, a crone looked at scrolls with child's doodles drawn on them with charcoal. Although her eyes were cataract-inflicted, she seemed to understand what the doodles meant, even though they looked rough and unprofessional. There were a total of four scrolls in her bony hands, which she looked over one by one - and the drawings were strange. They were of people fighting and of humans with wings, and although the material used for the drawings was not colored, it was obvious that whoever drew the pictures attempted to make an effect that looked like blood in some places.

After looking the drawings over, the woman wrote some notes on a piece of paper. A smile appeared on her face, distorting her already frightening features. "The prophecy is complete," she mused to herself. She looked up in an opening which could be called a window, and her beady eyes lingered upon the Moon That Never Sets. Immediately, a trail of thoughts transformed the barely friendly-looking gaze into a harsh, unsettling glare. _Damn that Soa_, she thought. _Already, we live in poverty and slavery, in need of heroes. And yet, when the heroes finally win, the villain has to come back in a more powerful form to destroy what he could not get. More have to die because of one that could not be defeated, and that hasn't even come to be. Why is it that this world has suffering to combat happiness?_ She looked back down at the doodles on the paper, sighing slightly. She decided not to think about things like that anymore.

"Grandma?" A child's voice rang out as a girl, probably no older than six, entered the room with the old woman. The crone turned her head, and the glare that had been in her eyes but minutes before turned to softness at the sight of her kin. Again, her face became distorted with a sort of deranged happiness.

"Cassandra? You're awake?"

"I can't sleep," the girl replied shortly, yawning and blinking her large green eyes in exhaustion. She clung to a small, torn teddy bear stuffed with cottonseeds, obviously as a need for comfort. Her pajamas, a long white nightgown, was grayed and torn in some places. However, what had to be the most shocking thing about this girl, if anything more, was her clean silver hair that grazed her shoulders. While the rest of her being was dirtied and tainted by poverty, her hair remained luminous, albeit tangled in some places.

The woman chuckled, an unexpected sound from one of that nature. "It's quite all right, Cassandra. You've helped me a lot. Your mother would've been proud, and I think that you can celebrate by-"

"That's not what I meant, Grandma. I had another nightmare."

The crone started, and reached cautiously for the notes and the doodles. "Was it the same one?"

"Yes, Grandma. It was when they took me away from you."

The fear in the grandmother's eyes was more obvious by the minute. "Who were 'they'?" she asked softly, trying to stop a tremble in her voice and failing. She didn't want to scare the girl by her own powers.

"The people with white wings and red eyes. They came when the moons were the biggest in the sky," the girl replied.

The crone's eyes darted from Cassandra's innocent look, to the full moons in the sky, and to the doodles on the desk. She stood up abruptly, causing the child to jump in surprise. Frantically, the old woman gathered up all the papers into a pile, and looked around for a place to put them. However, the desk - the only finery that they had - had no drawers whatsoever. The shack that they lived in had only two rooms - certainly not enough for a good hiding place. Her breathing got more rapid, then slowed when she realized that there was no place to put the things that she had cherished so deeply.

The girl had no idea what was going on, but looked unusually calm. "Grandma, what's happening?" she asked softly. Despite her confidence, her actions betrayed her; she clung to her teddy bear with more force, and walked over to where her grandmother was now looking down at the desk with despair.

Her question was answered in the form of an all-too-familiar hum. 

In utter shock, the woman dropped the scrolls and stared out the window. Coming to her senses, she pressed on the flames to extinguish them, ignoring the magnified sensation of pain that it caused to her fingers. She reached out to her granddaughter, and feeling her hand, hugged her in a mortal embrace. Cassandra suppressed her sobs, while the crone silently repeated to herself that they would not find her. 

It was too little, too late. They saw the light go out.

The hum stopped, and the sound of banging metal reached their ears. The wooden board that they had used as a door was pushed down to the dirt ground with little effort, and two men with silver hair looked into the darkness of the shack, muttering to themselves.

The old lady clung to Cassandra tightly. _Please, go away,_ she thought, closing her eyes. _We're not here, we're not here, please go away..._ Cassandra suppressed a moan and closed her eyes forcefully, to no avail.

One of the soldiers turned his head and the darkness and frowned. He could make out the outlines of two people - an old woman and a child. He created a small amount of fire and lit the candle, revealing the contents of the house to the Winglies - which wasn't much. However, they saw what they had been looking for, and that was all.

In no time, the girl could feel somebody tearing her away from her grandmother. A small wail escaped the woman's lips, and Cassandra reached out for her as the second soldier pinned the old woman against the wall. "Grandma!" she yelled, and tried to run to her, but the first soldier was grasping her shoulders tightly.

"Are these the ones that we're looking for?" the one near the crone asked.

"Dunno," a voice behind Cassandra said. "Are th' drawings anywhere?"

"I believe so," the first replied, holding up the scrolls with the drawings on them. "They match his description...Oh? And what's this?" He laughed slightly as he picked up the notes that the woman had written earlier, holding them in a careless matter. "'The humans shall bind souls with the dragons, and the Winglies will be overthrown by...' What kind of crap is this?" he said, but suddenly added, "Did the girl have green eyes?"

"Dunno."

Immediately, Cassandra shut her eyes, whimpering. It was just like her nightmare from the past couple of nights, the one that she had tried to avoid coming true. She aimed her eyes to the ground, although shut. 

"She doesn't look like a human. What if she's a Wingly - one of us?"

"Then th' woman'd be executed for harboring a different species, one superior to her," the other soldier replied.

"Is she the one?"

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It's what they said before! Cassandra screamed to herself. _No! I won't open my eyes! I'm not the one! Go away and leave us alone!_

"We'll just hafta make her open her eyes."

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NO!

Immediately, Cassandra was thrown to the ground harshly. Although she shrieked, she never opened her eyes, though they were stinging with tears. She gripped the ground with both of her hands, trying to make it all go away.

She heard another soldier laugh, and a loud thump. It was soon followed by the screams of Cassandra's grandmother.

"Grandma!" she yelled, looking up and trying to run toward her, despite the new bruises she acquired. Before she knew it, her arms were bent backwards, threatening to break. She screamed, tears streaming down her cheeks as the other soldier made her stand and forced her chin up. After a struggle, she was looking into her own reflection in pools of black within scarlet surrounded by white.

"She's th' one," the soldier commented. Cassandra wrinkled her nose at the stench of the soldier's breath, but said nothing - only let her head hang after the soldier let go. She had let it slip; it would go as predicted many nights ago. She sobbed to herself, trying to make it all go away. However, it wouldn't stop. What happened to her grandmother? She listened, trying to hear at least a muffled sound, but heard nothing. Was she dead? What happened to the other soldier? Where did he go?

"She's right this way, Lord Frahma."

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Frahma. She had heard that name before. But, where? Where did she remember, and why?

"She's refusing herself," said a cruel voice. "She's not revealing her true identity to us, because she already knows. How pitiful."

Again, her chin was lifted. However, this time, she was not looking into scarlet eyes that seemed believable, in the least. She was staring into acid green eyes against a distorted, black face with green streaks on it. A cruel smirk was on the owner's face as she saw her own petrified gaze within his mind, and she struggled, wanting to scream. 

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Help me!

"Nobody's helping you, little girl," Melbu Frahma said. "You're an abomination - an illegal. There is a punishment for such a person, and do you know what that punishment is?"

"...Cassandra?" The crone struggled to get herself off the ground, but stopped dead when she noticed Frahma just inches near her granddaughter's body. She stared in open-mouthed shock, and finally stood on the ground. The two soldiers stared at her, weapons drawn and ready to attack if necessary. The woman paid them no heed, and limped over to where Cassandra was being held.

Intrigued, Frahma turned from the girl to face the woman. A smirk played on his face when she fell on one knee and cursed loudly because of her injuries. "It's almost as if you bow to me willingly."

In response, she spit on the ground at his feet. "Bastard!" she yelled, not even bothering to hide the contempt in her eyes. However, it seemed that it was a fight just to stay on one knee; she would rock to one side as she stared, and rock to the other when she almost fell. "You ignorant fraud! I hope that you drown yourself in your own pool of hatred!"

Frahma merely stared, almost amused. "'Fraud'? Explain to me, human, why I am this 'fraud'."

The woman laughed harshly. "You promise justice in the time coming, and what do you get? You get the sniveling pigs that you want to destroy! You're a failure as a leader."

He shook his head, the smile gone. "I am not a leader. I am God, and the reason that I'm a 'failure', as you put it, is because of the imbeciles like you!" 

Cassandra tried to run for the door, because she knew what was going to happen; it was all in her nightmares from the past couple of nights. The images flashed in her mind again and again, and it empowered her to run away, but the nearby soldier grabbed her eyes and forced her to watch. She tried to yell, but no sound came out, so she opened her green eyes and forced herself to take everything in.

For a moment, Frahma and the woman were silent. The look on the woman's face was almost one of triumph, while the look on Frahma's was clearly one of sourness. Thinking herself victorious, the woman stood up, albeit tremulous, to look him in the eye. "Leave us now," she said calmly. She raised a wrinkled arm as if ready to slap him. In the corner, Cassandra shook her head, her mouth silently forming the words 'No, no, no!'

A sound of metal against metal was heard, and the woman's eyes suddenly became glazed and her breath gone as Frahma put a sword through her heart. Surprised, she looked down at the sword in her body to her murderer's stony face, uncaring. She tried to breathe, but couldn't, and her eyes rolled back into her head. The blood flowing in her throat blocked her voice, and the red liquid was now bubbling over her pale lips. The soldiers were silent.

"You disregarded the fact that I am God," he said calmly.

It was just like before. Cassandra squeezed her eyes shut, and ran out of the door, her green eyes now dry of tears. One thought was in her head: _Escape._

One of the soldiers looked out the door, saw her running down the rocky path. He cleared his throat and looked toward his master. Frahma was staring at the old woman's corpse. Again, the soldier cleared his throat: "What should we do with the girl?"

Frahma kicked the deceased human. "Capture her. Do not kill her, because we may actually have some use for her."

"But, m'Lord! You know what th' law-"

"You will obey my commands," the dictator said imperatively. "Or, am I not God?"

His voice sent a shiver down both of their spines. One of them looked tentatively at the other, and the second soldier gulped and nodded.

"Did you not hear me? Capture the girl!"

"Yes, m'Lord!"

Frahma looked at the dropped papers, and looked over them. The color that was left in him drained from his face when he read about his demise in the long future, but he shrugged it off and listened for the sign of the soldiers' success.

**

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I can't let them get me! Cassandra thought as she darted past the houses and hid behind an unusually large one. She shuddered as she remembered the images: the full moons, the door coming down, her grandmother's screams, Frahma's cold smirk, and the blood...all the blood that would come in the future from this...

If her eyes had any water left in them, she would be crying. However, there was no water, so all that she could do was choke pathetically. She realized that she was still clinging to her teddy bear; had she been carrying it and holding it all along? She didn't care right now, because she just learned the extent and the accuracy of her own powers. Right now, the person that Cassandra feared most was herself, and the things that she knew beforehand, _before_ they happened. What had Frahma called her? An "abomination"? She didn't know what that meant, but the word scared her, anyway. She slumped against the wall of the house that she was leaning against, and stared into space.

However, that was before she heard a loud crackle behind her, sudden warmth, and the smell of smoke. She grabbed her stuffed animal and turned around to find that the house that she had tried to hide behind had been lit on fire. Cassandra took a step back, and tried not to listen, only to hear a woman's scream and a baby's cry. Coughing and sobbing followed the scream, while the baby's cry stopped suddenly. She looked down to notice that the stuffing was falling out of her comfort toy, and she let out a cry as she was grabbed by one of the two Wingly soldiers. 

"Let me go!" she screamed, thrashing in his arms. A hum was heard, and the two were lifted off the ground. She felt a pang on the back of her neck, and the last thing she saw was an armor-covered arm holding her and a falling teddy bear before everything went black.

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Argh! I'd write more, but I think that this is already a bit long. Maybe I should have separated this chapter into two parts or something. X_x Anyway....Yay! -dances- This is my very first fanfic that I'm posting, so forgive me if I screwed up the layout or something. The lyrics above are from the song "Imaginary" by Evanescence, and I don't own 'em. Rate and Review, please! I need advice...X_x

UPDATE: I fixed the HTML problems, so it won't look as cruddy. XD I'm working on the second chapter, and it'll be up soon. Thanks to She-Ronin for her review! ^_^

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